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Total Fertility Rate Dips to Record Low Despite Birth Rise

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May 26, 1975, Page 34 The New York Times Archives

WASHINGTON, May 25 (AP) —The Census Bureau reported today that the birth rate statistic designed to indicate whether the future population will shrink or grow dropped last year to a record low.

It was the third year in a row that the statistic, the total fertility rate, was below the level at which births and deaths balance.

It came despite the first increase in four years in the nation's total number of births.

The speed at which the drop occurred suggests that postponement, rather than abandonment, of child‐hearing was the cause, the analyst who prepared the report, Campbell Gibson, said.

The current total fertility rate means every woman would have an average of 1.86 children during her lifetime.

The total fertility rate, which census demographers consider the most useful of the three birth rates they compile, projects the number of babies that every, 1,000 women of childbearing age would have during their lifetime at the birth rate for a given year.

In 1974 the figure was down to 1.862 compared with the previous record low of 1,896 in 1973. The population would theoretically balance at a permanent rate of 2,100.

The most familiar birth rate, which census calls the crude birth rate, is simply the number of births for every 1,000 men, women and children in the country. That rate was 14.9 in 1974 identical to 1973's record low.

The general fertility rate, which consists of the number of births per 1,000 women of child‐bearing age, was estimated at 68.5 in 1974, down from 197?? low of 69.2.

A version of this archives appears in print on May 26, 1975, on Page 34 of the New York edition with the headline: Total Fertility Rate Dips to Record Low Despite Birth Rise. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe